A Heart Worth Breaking
by hayeah
Summary: The ring burns through her skin in white hot rage... or desire. The problem is she can not tell the difference, no matter how hard she tries. Elijah/OC
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:**Nope I don't own tvd so that's all cool  
**Warning:** It's the prologue nothing happens yet. sorry  
**Notes:** so I've been thinking about this for AGES and I just really wanted to write it. So bear with me okay  
Well here we go

.

.

_**A Heart Worth Breaking**_

.

_to trust, my dear girl, would be even more clueless than to love_

_._

_._

He feels her rather than sees her. He doesn't hear a heartbeat or a single breath leaving her lips – he just _feels _her.

"You're alive." She says, her tone so ice, _ice_ cold he feels the shiver travelling down his spine in his every bone. He doesn't speak though. He knows nothing will be enough – not now, not ever.

"You are alive." She repeats it, like a witch chanting a spell in a language that he has long learned to understand. "You aren't dead."

He would've been tempted to reply – to tease, saying that was usually the way people were when 'alive'. Oh, to get under her skin; but he figures he doesn't really have to do anything now to get her angry. To get her to try and rip his heart from his chest.

And just like that, she's gone. He doesn't even know what she looks like these days, hasn't laid eyes on her for a little over hundred years.

But _she's here_.

He feels his ring burning on his finger.

Figures.

.

.

.

**A/N: **So... You can flame me now. Anyway I just wanted to know if anyone would be interested in this. And even if y'all weren't: I'm gonna write it anyway. So whatever.  
Heeeee I'm way more nervous about this than I should be.


	2. Click Clack, Tick Tock

**Disclaimer: **Still no owno  
**Warning:** Nope I'm so nice  
**Notes:** So I decided to put up the next chapter which is still all about Jess. Who is awesome. Basically Damon's pov.

.

.

_**click clack, tick tock**_

_._

_._

Her heels click on the pavement outside. He sits at the bar, still drowning his sorrows. Still mulling over losing Elena. Over her drowning - coming back a vampire. Stefan not being able to save her in time too. Saving Matt. Being not the dumbest brother alive, but coming in a _very_ close second.

It's not like he really cares though, about the vampirism. Everything's better than her dying these days. These days where he's a pathetic, brooding idiot. Not as bad as Stefan, but there's this nagging little old-damon (back when he still could live with himself, back when he still was irrevocably _cool_) voice in his head, saying _'yet'._

Her heels click and he sits. He drains the glass and leans over to order another when her hand touches the bar.

"Hello, Damon."

He should wonder how she knows him; he should be freaked out, finding her creepy. But when he looks up to see her pearly-white skin, her blonde hair and enormous blue eyes, she's just a kid.

So he offers a _'hi'_ muffled in whiskey on the rocks.

"I couldn't find your brother, so would you please fetch him for me?"

It's only now that he notices her accent. Something european, he thinks. Something european, mixed with Klaus' en Rebekah's british - mixed with Elijah's creepiest nasal new _fucking_ Zealand-y tone – but it's all just a hint to her perfectly fine american.

She demands though. Not playing nice with him at all. He thinks he likes it. Sort of. He doesn't think he really knows what he wants (what he likes).

He used to like these women, demanding things. Not trying to hide the fact that they are vicious, _vicious_ creatures. And then Elena came along and now he's not sure of anything anymore. If he loves her for trusting him so much, or if he hates her for being so vicious, so _so_ vicious while pretending to care.

And this one is not pretending to care. Not about him anyway. Using him, shamelessly, to get to his brother.

Just like the rest of them. She's no different. _Demanding _things like a spoiled little rich kid. Of _him_. She's like barbie-barbie-klaus. Baby-Rebekah.

He smiles to himself.

She's way too young for him anyway.

Fetch Stefan. In her dreams, he thinks.

So he says.

She looks at him so icily he thinks for a second he can feel te cold inside his chest.

"Why are you being unhelpful right now?" She demands, suddenly sounding so innocent, and so young.

He refrains from telling her _'fuck_ _you_ _that's_ _why'_, and listens instead.

Listens to how she hasn't taken a breath the entire conversation. How her heart doesn't beat. How her eyes don't flutter. No he _sees_ they don't flutter, her icy glare still set upon him. He decides she has had years to practice that glare. Years, decades, _centuries_... All the while looking like the perfect sixteen-year-old.

He's self-destructive, but not self-destructive or stupid enough to underrestimate this girl; this woman. This girl is not stupid. But she's no different either. Really a baby-Rebekah then, he supposes.

"Wanna borrow my phone and call him? He'll pick up." He says offhandedly, trying to deflect. He doesn't like the way this conversation is heading. He was hoping Stefan would _not_ be involved.

She pouts.

"I thought you'd be nicer. Stefan was very nice."

Great, that's just what he needs; another _freaking_ Stefan-groupie.

"He's not that great either. Might snap and rip people apart, that one."

She laughs at that. Just slightly. Just a chuckle.

"Oh Damon Slavatore, please don't play the big innocent."

She taps lightly on the bar and he knows that's it -

"Your brother, Damon..."

...And he sighs and dials the familiar number himself. He is not particularly feeling like talking to Stefan, whom is as we speak probably crying over Elena's baby pictures, wallowing in his _own_ disgusting sadness of how she'll never grow old. Never have kids. Maybe he should take a break from it all and realise that it's all his very fault.

"Damon." He's using his broody-voice extraordinaire.

So he mentions that, before he sees how she's smiling brightly, as if she's actually happy to hear him.

He hisses – _hisses_ because this is all so unfair – '_do you want to talk to him, girl?'_

She just smiles serenely, and it's not the deranged, creepy, age-old vamp reaction he expected from her at the word 'girl'. He feels just that little pinch in his chest, like someone is stabbing him with a needle, only once – only once – but enough to make him sigh again.

"There's someone here for you and she couldn't find you and she wanted me to fetch you." He trails of in yet another sigh, this time of embarrassment – but she doesn't really care about that, does she, and neither does he.

"Okay…" Comes Stefan's voice, now sounding more curious than hollow, "Who is it, Damon?"

"Well, I don't really know, now, do I? She just showed up here demanding stuff from me."

Stefan just mutters something that sounds suspiciously like '_jesus_'.

"Jess?" He questions then, almost exasperated.

The girl starts jumping up and down and squealing, and apparently Damon really was mistaken – she is an idiot, vampire or not.

'_I'll be right there_,' and the dull '_click'_ of Stefan hanging up on him is all he gets. All he gets before she pats him on the shoulder and runs through the front door of the Grill. It's probably her way of thanking him. (For something she forced him to do.)

He sees them outside.

Reuniting.

He doesn't even know the girl.

Jess.

Jess, Jess.

Jess, Jess, Jess, Jess.

Doesn't sound very age-old vampire to him.


	3. You Did Not Just Call Me A Slut

**Disclaimer:**I don't own TVD, if I did Jess would be in it okay  
**Warning:** There are some offensive words in this chapterrr  
**Notes:** I miss Lexi okay

.

.

**you did not just call me a slut**

_._

_._

"What on earth are you even doing here?" he asks suspiciously for what seems the fifteenth time.

"I told you Stefan, I am here to see you," she supplies again, impatiently, always so impatient.

He just stares at her. They haven't seen each other for literal ages. Almost six decades, he hasn't heard her bickering with Lexi (the pang in his chest, that he always feels when he thinks of his best friend, so much more apparent now Jess is sitting right in front of him) because that was just 'the kind of friends they were'. He has missed her. Missed this. He tries not to think of Lexi too much – it only makes him loathe his brother and himself more – but when he does, Jess' crowing laugh mingled with Lexi's angry screams are always in the forefront of his mind. For some reason they had always been getting each other in to the worst situations that left one of them livid.

He had always admired how easily they made peace – usually Lexi would just hit Jess in the face, or vice-versa, which would be it. Sometimes they would just get bored with screaming and apparently decided to be civil with each other again. If you could've called only one aspect of their friendship civil.

"God, is it such a surprise? Since when can't I check up on my friend?" For one second there is somewhat of a worried look on her face, but she recovers, like always.

"It's been quite a few years, Jess."

She snorts very un-ladylike. "It's not like we're gonna _die_."

The smirk that had been sitting on her face for the entire conversation slid of now, and all Stefan can do is look at her. God, how very disappointing. He was supposed to be the tactful one.

He had never actually asked her _how_ old she was, but he had always suspected she was way older than she let on. Sometimes he would see it in her eyes, this kind of pain he was seeing now, but she would recover so quick he knew. He knew she was probably fucking ancient compared to him, because there was no way he could just forget about (_ignore_) the pain without turning _all _of it off.

He had to say something, damn it.

"She is dead, Jess."

She had been sitting there, staring at him without any emotion showing. But when he said it, she smiled. She _smiled_. For a terrifying second Stefan thought she was really crazy now – just completely nuts, no way back – but thank God he then saw the warm shining in her eyes. It wasn't anything close to crying, more like a hint of a tear.

She laughs in earnest. "She died a heroes death right? It's exactly what she would've wanted, Stef."

He tries not to flinch at the nickname.

"Well, have you buried her? We could visit the grave. Show a little respect for dead sluts."

"Sluts. You're now calling your dead best friend a slut," he informs her dryly, shaking his head at the way the conversation turned to calling dead best friends names.

"Ah, I can think of way worse things I called her, the goddamn cumdumpster."

They didn't really stop laughing until half an hour later, and then it was only because Elena had come in.

"What's all the laughing about?" she asks meekly, Stefan already by her side.

"Cumdumpster," says Jess, extending her hand. "You must be Elena."

Stefan is really proud of himself for not bellowing '_how do you know her_' protectively, for the record. He hates how protective he is of Elena, especially when she clearly does not want or need it. So he keeps it to himself. All the time. Frankly, he's getting sick of how Damon gets to be protective but he can't, because he's supposed to be better. Frankly, he's getting sick of a lot of things.

"Yeah."

"How is it? Being a vampire?"

Stefan sighs. Leave it to Jess to be absolutely not subtle at _all_. Without even introducing herself. For the love of _God_.

"Elena Gilbert, Jessima Helsen. She's an old friend and resident idiot of the vampire community."

Jess laughs sarcastically at that.

"You should have become a comedian, Stefan. You really missed your calling. Now let me talk to your girlfriend."

He wants to tell her. Tell her that Elena was _not _his girlfriend – hell, he didn't even know if they were friends right now – that Elena was dead now, because of him. That the Elena he loved, the human one, is gone forever and that he did all he could to stop himself from looking at pictures of the real her. Who was dead now. That he is pretty sure vampire Elena would choose Damon over him any day, that Damon probably won't care and go on and elope because he is more than a little pissed about the whole saving-Matt-first incident. And because he's Damon.

He wants to cry too, but it's not like h'es going to do that. And he is actually kind of scared that if he would open his mouth right now, all he would do was exactly that.

So he opens and then closes his mouth again.

Elena smiles at him and he would've shut up for that anyway.

"I thought you would know," Elena says warmly.

Stefan is actually surprised she is still trying to make people (_vampires_) comfortable. He knows that hadn't been his priority right after he'd turned.

"Oh no, it's been _way _too long to remember," Jess laughs.

Elena hummed, like she _understood_. "It gets better. At least, that's what they're all saying. If you can't even remember it, I suppose they're right."

Jess smiled in this weird faraway manner. "I suppose so too. Tell me then, what is it like?"

Stefan secretly hated it when other people got better results in consoling than him. It was his goddamn field, an art form he perfected. He knew it was weird to feel that way, but when you took into account how it was one of the only things he was actually good at, he thought he had all the right to. In his head. Anyway, he hated it. He especially hated it when totally untactful, obvious and blunt people like Jess, got better results.

Elena always told him she was fine – '_don't _worry, Stefan' – and now she changed into a human (_vampire_) waterfall. Of words.

"Sucks. I'm so tired but I'm not. Do you even know what that's like? Like all I want to do is sleep, but when I try to, I can't."

"I know how that feels! It happens with sex too."

Oh god, so inappropriate. Even worse when Elena's eyes fleetingly glanced in his direction, which Jess obviously noticed.

"Anyway, I am hungry. So hungry, and I just seem to _hate_ everything."

"I think I already had that when I was a human, though."

"I just want to punch things. Do you want to punch things?"

"You _can _punch things. Please. Be my guest."

Stefan rolls his eyes. "Okay, Jess, that's great. But let's not do unnecessary violence."

"It's not unnecessary if she _wants _it."

"God, you're more annoying than I remember."

"Your memory sucks."

And then she tackles Elena to the ground.


	4. 1196

**Disclaimer:**TVD and Kol belong to Julie Plec I guess  
**Warning:** -  
**Notes:** Aaaaah I'm so sorry, I have some serious issues and have been neglecting this story like crazy. But you know, flashback time. So forgive me? I got you Lord Forthwind and Kol Mikaelson.

.

.

**1196**

_._

_._

– _England, 1196 – _

It was like the mud sucked on her boots that morning. It had been raining for eight moons straight, the innkeeper had said. She had grinned, because _how bad could it be_.

"I can handle it," she had said. The innkeeper had just laughed at her and went to pour some more mead for the lonely haunter sitting at the bar. He had introduced himself as Lord Forthwind the Courageous – presumably the innkeeper had been giving him that mead all day.

She had gone upstairs then. Muriel, the tentative, quiet maid had made her bed with four blankets – England was colder than Jessima herself this time of year. She had wrapped herself in all four of them, and sat in front of the fire all night. In the morning she had pulled her boots on again – she had never made the effort to take off her other clothes; a cotton legging and leather coat. She had put up her blonde hair again and gone downstairs.

Lord Forthwind the Courageous had been nowhere to be seen, but Muriel was cutting pieces of off a large corn bread.

"Miss Helsen. How was your night?"

"Extraordinary, Muriel. Thank you for the blankets."

Jess heard the innkeeper stumbling down the stairs and she wondered if he had too much of his own mead last night, when he apparently emptied his stomach in the kitchen.

"Did you want some bread, Milady?" Muriel had asked, oblivious to her boss tramping through the hall.

"Oh, thank you, dear. But I must really go now. Here you go," and Jess had handed her more than enough dubloons.

Leaving a baffled Muriel behind, she had then taken off into the pouring rain and sucking mud.

_You won't ever make it to Longford Castle, girl. The mud will wear you down in mere hours._

The innkeeper had been right, she thought. Any normal man, much less woman, would've made it all the way to Longford in this sludge. She kept at it for hours and hours on end, and it even started to affect her.

Almost two hundred years, she scolded. Two hundred years and she couldn't handle a little mud. God, she was the worst vampire alive. Or dead, technically.

Suddenly, a twig snapped on her left, in the forest. Next thing Jess knew she was plummeting face first into the mud.

Oh god. The string of curses that left her mouth the moment she pushed herself up again, face full of mud, could've 'put the devil himself to shame', as her mother would've said. But she was long dead, so couldn't _really _say anything.

In short, she was already painfully aware of her own stupidity and currently ill-favored appearance, and all of this over what was probably a bunny stepping on a twig.

On second thought, she really was kind of thirsty. A bunny wouldn't be a particularly bad thing.

But when she raised up from the mud, it wasn't a bunny that was staring at her, wide-eyed, but a man. For one short, terrifying second she thought it was Lord Forthwind – coming after her in his drunken stupor to violate her – but then she remembered how she was a thousand times stronger than three sober Lord Forthwinds.

If it had only been Lord Forthwind.

"Good day Milady," the stranger said.

God damn him – she seemed to amuse him, for his smirk turned into a grin when she glared at him. He was very handsome, Jess acknowledged, his hair dark and dripping from the rain, his eyes darker and even more shimmering. He was tall and – she startled when she noticed.

There had been one single time she had met someone like her. A _vampire_. She had met him in Brussels in the summer of 1097, when he tried to eat her.

"Oh shite," he had screamed. "You're one too."

They laughed at that and then they had been partners for over thirty years.

_You're one of the good ones Jessie. _

They had driven a stick right through him, in front of her. She wondered if she could drive a stick through this vampire's heart too, because he didn't seem too friendly.

Also, she would like to have no one witness her with her face and clothes covered in mud.

"You all right?"

God, what an obnoxious, disg –

He hauled her to her feet with such ease her earlier question had been answered: No, she could probably _not _stake this man. Or, boy, now that she was staring right into his face. He grinned again.

"Are you incapable of speech, little one?"

Little one – well that did it. She had always been a little quick-tempered, and as a vampire it seemed as if that trait had been impossibly magnified. No matter how handsome he was, or how easy he tread the mud, she was bloody well likely to poke his eye out.

So she stepped closer and tried to do just that. And soon enough she was rewarded with an intensely satisfying _Ow!_ and an unknown, vile vampire on both knees.

"What did you do that for? Where the bloody hell did you learn to do that!?" he demanded as soon as his eye started healing.

"Practice makes perfect, _little one_. And, frankly, I don't think my poke is that perfect yet."

He smiled sarcastically at that, but didn't seem to lose his interest. Unfortunately.

"Kol," he said, extending his hand, "And I should probably stake you for that eye-thing you just pulled."

She looked him well in the face. He knew about the wooden stakes then. She had always been mystified about everything vampire, honestly. No one was there to teach her _anything_ when she had just changed into one. She just woke up one day on the beach, having no idea how she got there, but the sun was suddenly burning, burning, _burning_ like it never had before. Before she knew it she was in the shadows. She had ran like some… God? She had ran fast like the wind and she could _smell _the sea and _feel _the sand and _hear_ the fisherman that were far out on sea. And she had thought it was just a dream or a wonderful miracle until she had basically ate one of the fisherman whole. Then there was the sun that burned her flesh red and black, the teeth in her mouth – those of an animal, sharp and deadly – the veins under her eyes, swollen and almost painful. Always the hunger, the thirst; she didn't know, couldn't tell the difference.

And while all the fishermen went to heaven, she went through hell. Being a vampire turned out to not be as easy as it sounded and without any sort of guidance she had felt all alone. She had oft wondered if she was maybe the only one of her kind. After all, she had no idea how to create another one of her kind, or who created her.

But this boy with arms stronger than hers knew things, and so – against all of her morals and standards – she reached him her hand.

"Jessima," she said haughtily (trying to rescue some of her dignity from certain, painful death), "And I invite you to try your best."

"I don't think you would want me to try, Milady," Kol said, kissing her hand. "But speaking of murdering the weak, I'm having a little dinner at my residence. I would be overjoyed if you could find the time to join me and my family."

She could feel the teeth sting, feel her heart contort. Feel how the words wanted to come out broken and unhinged, her breath catching in her throat. She hadn't killed since Domnall taught her how to compel. And she had taken to drinking animal blood anyway. When she was travelling, she found it more practical to suck on some deer than to go find a town. Drinking from humans did nothing but make her feel guilty. She took an unneeded breath.

"I don't drink from humans."

His left eyebrow shot up.

"I drink animal blood."

Slowly, his right eyebrow joined his left.

"I have for a few years now."

When he finally opened his mouth, he didn't seem impressed anymore but just very bored.

"Well, Jessima, that's all very honourable," he shook his head slowly, "but unnatural. It's not how we're supposed to live, you know. I was just starting to like you."

Ugh, this man really got on her nerves too much. But all she wanted was to _know_. Domnall told her everything he knew, but it wasn't much. It wasn't enough – not for her, at least. She felt like getting out of there, leaving this _boy _behind and running, instead she said, "I'll come to your ridiculous bloodfeast, if that's what you desire so much," immediately regretting her words, but feeling more excited than she had in years.

Unfortunately, excitement seemed for young girls now. All she felt was tense. And all she felt was ancient.

.

.

.

**A/N: **Everyone that reviews, favorites or follows gets drunken hugs from Lord Forthwind okay


End file.
